1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to product manuals and more particularly, to a system and method for assembling product manuals automatically based on product models.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the complexity and sophistication of technological products being manufactured and operated today, documentation which provides instructions and relevant technical information for properly operating and maintaining the products has become an integral part of the products. Product documentation includes a variety of product-related technical documents such as descriptions of machine parts, installation procedures, operation instructions, inspection schedules, maintenance records, etc. Compared to non-technical documentation, the contents and structures of product documents and technical documents are much more rigid and often comply to various industrial standards. There are three aspects of production documentation that may be further explored. First, a product type often includes a family of related product models, and they share a large percentage of common parts in the same family. Thus, technical documents for the common parts may be reused for the related product models. Secondly, product information is needed at different stages of the life cycle of a product from manufacturing and installation, to training, operation, and maintenance. Thus, a large portion of the technical documents can be reused in different contexts. Thirdly, technical documents tend to be highly cross-referenced, and often refer the users to many different forms of technical data including textual instructions, schematic diagrams, CAD drawings, photo images of machine parts, video of inspection procedures, etc.
As the products and the documents evolve in their own directions through time, a large number of models of products and a large number of versions of documents continue to be created and updated. The complexity of product documentation is thus dependent on the complexity of the products, the complexity of the documents, and the relationships between the products and the documents. To construct a multimedia manual for a specific product, which is composed of thousands of product documents together with thousands of schematic diagrams, CAD drawings, photo images, video and audio clips is really a major undertaking. In particular, product documents in all different media are prepared and processed for all machine parts of all product models in all product families by many authors and engineers on their own machines in different departments throughout an organization. Based on the configuration of a product, versions of the component documents, including versions of all related diagrams, images, drawings, etc., are selected, formatted and assembled into multiple volumes of a multimedia product manual. Thus, building a highquality product manual is a very time-consuming process, and ensuring the correctness of all the contents and the consistency with the customer""s product is even more tedious, if not impossible.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for automatically assembling multimedia technical manuals for large-scale, complex products and services. A further need exists for a system and method for updating and maintaining such manuals as well.
A system for automatically assembling product manuals based on a product model, a delivery model and a formal configuration specification includes a structure instantiator for instantiating a product manual structure from a model-specific configuration specification to create a logical structure for a product manual. The product manual structure incorporates product information from a product model, the product manual structure including document objects. A manual configurer is included for configuring the product manual by binding the document objects in the logical structure to proper versions of component documents stored in a document database. A manual generator is also included for generating the product manual by physically extracting the document objects from the document database to a directory, based on a delivery model.
In alternate embodiments, the configuration specification may include sections for representing relationships in the logical structure. The configuration specification sections may include a configuration section for specifying the logical structure of the product manual in terms of composition relationships of the document objects, a work sequence section for specifying a list of operational work steps in terms of composition relationships between work steps, a property section for specifying characteristics of the document objects in the logical structure, a binding section for specifying a current binding status between the document objects in the logical structure and physical document files and/or an unknown section for specifying unbound document objects and for listing the document objects to identify missing documents and identify a need to create new documents. The configuration specification preferably supports incremental composition for updating and maintaining the document objects and the product manual.
The instantiator may include a file structure builder for setting up a working environment on a file structure, the file structure including files related to the product which are copied from the document database in accordance with the delivery model. A configuration template identifier may be included for identifying and retrieving a model-specific configuration template from the document database, the model-specific configuration template for integrating information into a model-specific manual structure for the product manual. A model-specific manual structure creator may be included for parsing the model-specific manual structure to create an internal structure and for automatically validating the internal structure against product information in a product database. A machine-specific manual structure creator may be included for creating a machine-specific manual structure by incorporating machine-specific and customer-specific requirements into the model-specific manual structure, and a configuration specification generator may be included for generating a machine-specific configuration specification from the machine-specific manual structure with the properties and binding status of all the document objects.
The manual configurer may further include a model-specific document binder for binding model-specific document objects in a machine-specific product manual structure to physical document files in the document database, a machine-specific document generator for extracting machine-specific product information from the document database and generating machine-specific documents for the document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure. A machine-specific document binder may be included for binding machine-specific document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure to physical document files in the document database. A product document promoter may also be included for promoting machine-specific documents to model-specific documents for a product model. A similar document finder may be included for identifying similarities between the documents in the document database and the document objects in a machine-specific product manual structure to determine if the existing documents are reusable. The manual configurer may further included a configuration generator for capturing a current state of assembling the machine-specific product manual, and generating a machine-specific configuration to support incremental composition and an unknown list generator for generating a list of unbound document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure.
In still other embodiments, the manual generator may further include a component document retriever for retrieving the component documents from the document database, based on a machine-specific configuration, and the component document retriever for storing the component documents in various subdirectories of a machine-specific directory, based on the delivery model and a document evaluator for evaluating the retrieved component documents to convert the retrieved component documents into machine-specific documents. The manual generator may also include a document transformer for transforming the structure of the retrieved component documents into a target document structure for the machine-specific product manual, based on a document structure transformation specification and a supporting multimedia retriever for retrieving multimedia files associated with the retrieved component documents for the machine-specific product manual. The manual generator may still further include a machine-specific product manual generator for generating top-level standard generalized markup language (SGML) documents to complete the machine-specific product manual, including one or more of a table of contents, work sequence lists, a glossary and an index and a presentation style retriever for retrieving presentation styles for the machine-specific product manual structure, based on the delivery model.
The formal configuration specification may include a product manual configuration specification language (PMCSL). The document objects preferably include at least one of drawings, diagrams, text, photographs, video, animation and audio.
A method for automatically assembling product manuals based on a product model, a delivery model and a formal configuration specification includes the steps of instantiating a product manual structure from a model-specific configuration specification to create a logical structure for a product manual, the product manual structure incorporating the product information from a product model, the product manual structure including document objects; configuring the product manual by binding the document objects in the logical structure to proper versions of component documents stored in a document database; and generating the product manual by physically extracting the document objects from the document database to a directory, based on a delivery model.
In other methods, the configuration specification may include sections and the method may further include the step of representing relationships in the logical structure using the sections. The method may further include the step of specifying the logical structure of the product manual in terms of composition relationships of the document objects using a configuration section, specifying a list of operational work steps in terms of composition relationships between work steps using a work sequence section, specifying characteristics of the document objects in the logical structure using a property section, specifying a current binding status between the document objects in the logical structure and physical document files using a binding section and/or specifying unbound document objects using an unknown section and listing the document objects to identify missing documents and identify a need to create new documents using the unknown section. In still other methods, the method may further include the step of updating and maintaining the document objects and the product manual.
The step of instantiating may further include the steps of setting up a working environment on a file structure, the file structure including files related to the product which are copied from the document database in accordance with the delivery model; identifying and retrieving a model-specific configuration template from the document database, the model-specific configuration template for integrating information into a model-specific manual structure for the product manual; parsing the model-specific manual structure to create an internal structure and for automatically validating the internal structure against product information in a product database; creating a machine-specific manual structure by incorporating machine-specific and customer-specific requirements into the model-specific manual structure; and generating a machine-specific configuration specification from the machine-specific manual structure with the properties and binding status of all the document objects.
The step of configuring may further include the steps of binding model-specific document objects in a machine-specific product manual structure to physical document files in the document database; extracting machine-specific product information from the document database and generating machine-specific documents for the document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure; binding machine-specific document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure to physical document files in the document database; promoting machine-specific documents to model-specific documents for a product model; identifying similarities between the documents in the document database and the document objects in a machine-specific product manual structure to determine if the existing documents are reusable; capturing a current state of assembling the machine-specific product manual, and generating a machine-specific configuration to support incremental composition; and generating a list of unbound document objects in the machine-specific product manual structure.
The step of generating may further include the steps of retrieving the component documents from the document database, based on a machine-specific configuration, and the component document retriever for storing the component documents in various subdirectories of a machine-specific directory, based on the delivery model; evaluating the retrieved component documents to convert the retrieved component documents into machine-specific documents; transforming the structure of the retrieved component documents into a target document structure for the machine-specific product manual, based on a document structure transformation specification; retrieving multimedia files associated with the retrieved component documents for the machine-specific product manual; generating top-level standard generalized markup language (SGML) documents to complete the machine-specific product manual, including one or more of a table of contents, work sequence lists, a glossary and an index; and retrieving presentation styles for the machine-specific product manual structure, based on the delivery model.
The formal configuration specification may include a product manual configuration specification language (PMCSL). The document objects may include at least one of drawings, diagrams, text, photographs, video, animation and audio.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings.